End 68 Hours of Hunger sets stuff a truck event at Uno's on Jan. 18-20

By Michelle Kingston

mkingston@fosters.com

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

DOVER — End 68 Hours of Hunger is asking for the public’s help in raising $10,000 worth of donations at the group’s upcoming food drive at Uno Chicago Bar and Grill.

The organization’s executive director, Claire Bloom, is excited to partner with the restaurant, which asked to help her out six months ago.

“Timing just was not good for us at that point because we were so consumed because the program was growing so fast,” Bloom said. “Now is the perfect time for this.”

From Jan. 18-20, the organization will have a dump truck parked in front of the restaurant. End 68 Hours of Hunger is looking to fill it with cereal, plastic containers of peanut butter and jelly, canned soup, canned tuna and chicken, crackers, canned fruit, granola bars, ramen noodle packages and boxed macaroni and cheese. The food will then be sorted through and delivered to children on Friday afternoons who are not fed well at home so they have enough food to eat over the weekend.

In addition to filling the truck, Uno’s will also be donating 10 percent of the proceeds of every pizza sold over the weekend to the program. Bloom’s goal is to sell 68 pizzas.

Schools served by the organization will win a pizza party for the class that brings in the most donations and people who donate 10 or more items over the weekend will receive a free “not-so-mini” dessert at Uno’s. Families who donate more than 50 items will be entered in a drawing for a birthday party for 10 friends.

Bloom said every donation helps alleviate childhood hunger in the Seacoast.

When she first started End 68 Hours of Hunger in 2011, she served 19 students at one school.

“We are now in 10 towns serving over 500 children,” Bloom said. “Every dollar of food that gets donated is a dollar of food I do not have to buy.”

The organization now works with Dover, Somersworth, Portsmouth, Hampton, Alton, Barnstead, Barrington, Milton and Eliot and Kittery, Maine.